Steven T. Varela is currently an Associate Director with Academic Technologies (AT), and faculty member with the Department of English at The University of Texas at El Paso. In his role with Academic Technologies, Varela specializes in curriculum and instructional design for fully online, blended and tech-enhanced courses, and teaching with technology, and is an expert using multimedia and multimodal approaches to teaching and learning. He currently oversees the Creative Studios area of AT, which is responsible for graphic design, software and web programming, multimedia, emerging technologies and professional development. As a faculty member, Varela’s research and teaching interests include the areas of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC’s), Gamification and Game-Informed Learning, Critical Pedagogy and Social Justice, Popular Culture, Graphic Novels and Literacy, and Transformational Leadership, Organization, and Educational Policy, with content expertise in Literature, Literary Theory, Rhetoric and Composition, and Reading Education. Varela has been a CETaL fellow, and was an inaugural recipient of the UT Regents Award for Outstanding Teaching.